To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what average hourly rate his Department paid to employment agencies for agency staff in each year since 1999, broken down by agency. (89577)

DFID periodically engages temporary staff, both administrative and professional, through employment agencies. Only some information on agency hourly rates is held centrally—for those agencies who supply DFID regularly. The average hourly rate for these agencies, who supply mainly junior administrative grades, is as follows:

Grade C2

£7.30 Glasgow, Margaret Hodge Recruitment Agency

£7.46 Glasgow, TempTeam

Grade C1

£8.75 Glasgow, Margaret Hodge Recruitment Agency

£10.98 London, Josephine Sammonds

Information on average hourly rates for the years before 2005-06 is not readily available.

Other agencies are used on an ad hoc basis but information about these agencies is not held centrally and could be secured only at disproportionate cost.

DFID will be joining an existing framework arrangement, set up by the Prison Service, this year and once this comes into force information will be more readily available.